

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


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Copyrighted December, 1904, 
By Rev. A. G. Axtell, 
Blair, Neb. 


THE LEGEND OF 
» THE LEAVES m 

BY REV. A. G. AXTELL 


— 



As for m e, I will behold thy face in righteousness : 
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy like- 
ness.— David. ------ 

shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall 
be satisfied.— Isaiah. - 


BLAIR, NEB., MDCCCCIV : THE COURIER PRINT 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 22 1204 

Gopyritfwi tntry 

oQa^.S', 

CLASS <Xs AXc. Noi 

/°3 >t>7 

COPY B. 


©education. 

IN Remembrance of a Delightful Outing in De- 
* vSoto Woods, and of Many Other Delightful 
Experiences Afforded by the Members of the 
Congregational Church of Blair, Nebraska, 
This Gittle Volume is Dedicated to Them, With 
the Sincere Affection of Their Minister. 

Blair, Nebraska. A. G. AXTEGE. 



Gbe Xegenb of tbe Xeaveo. 

PROLOGUE. 

W\ LL thro’ the winter the leaves were 
'J rocked in their tiny capsules upon 
the twigs of the trees. Sleeping, grow- 
ing, but so slowly; as yet they were hard- 
ly leaves. But when the warm sun of 
April came, and the showers, and when 
the sap began to come up from the earth, 
they awoke to consciousness, not that 
they were leaves, but that they were 
alive. They grew, they felt the pressure 
of life-giving sap within them, they 
pressed against the walls of the bud that 
held them within its strong, sheltering 
grasp and they wanted to get out. More 
and more they felt the life within, more 
and more they pressed upon the soft sur- 
face of their prison, as they called it, and 
they were not satisfied. 



Growing, swelling, swelling, growing, 
they at last from very ecstacy burst their 
buds and appeared, green, tender, tiny 
leaves. How warm the sun, how refresh- 
ing the showers, how delightful the 
breeze that swayed them to and fro, how 
wonderful this world into which they 
were born! Storms came, but they did 
not mind. The lightning was very 
bright, but it did not blind them. They 
rather enjoyed it, and they listened with 
curious eagerness to the thunder as it 
seemed to roll above and below them. 

Sometimes they were cold, but they 
hardly thought of that. There was noth- 
ing to trouble them except a secret long- 
ing for something better — a vague, in- 
definite longing that they could not 
define. They could not tell why they 
were not satisfied, nor what they wanted, 
but they felt that there was something 



beyond, which they must attain before 
they could be satisfied. 

Still they grew, and when they had 
come out into the sunlight and air they 
could hear voices among the trees all 
about, and in their own home, the voices 
of the breeze; and it said to them a 
thousand times and in a thousand dif- 
ferent ways, “You shall be satisfied, you 
shall be satisfied.” And so they would 
rest content, and swing, and swing, and 
enjoy the sunshine and the shadows and 
the nesting birds. Growing, growing, 
growing, what joy to be alive; and at 
nightfall how restful to be rocked and 
sung to sleep. 


EPISODE THE FIRST. 



O NE day a most wonderful thing hap- 
pened, as it seemed to them. They 
were as happy as could be, so they were 
thinking, and had even for the moment 
forgotten that they were not satisfied; 
when, all at once — what a beautiful sight! 
a tiny child came running thro’ the grove 
where they were, and stopped under the 
very tree on which they lived. They 
were breathless with excitement and 
happiness. What a charming creature! 
and she held up her chubby little hands 
to them, and said: “Pity yeaves, pity 
yeaves!” and it seemed as tho’ they 
would faint for joy. 

Just then a woman came, the mother 
of the little child, and caught her up, and 
said: “Why, you little mischief, you ran 
away, and made mamma come all the 
way after you.” “Yis,” said the little 



maiden, “I yunned away, but I saw the 
yeaves, pity yeaves, mamma, pity yeaves!” 
So they went away. And just as they 
were going, the breeze came along and 
whispered, “You shall be satisfied” so 
low that no one but the leaves could 
hear. And they wondered, and said, “O, 
but were we not satisfied just now? What 
could be more beautiful or wonderful 
than such a sight!” But the breeze an- 
swered, “You shall be satisfied, you shall 
be satisfied.” 



EPISODE THE SECOND. 

ND so the spring days came and 
J — went, sometimes warm and some- 
times cold; till one day it became cloudy 
and grew colder and colder. Towards 
night it began to snow, and it was, O, so 
cold! The leaves tho’t they could not 
stand it; but this was nothing compared 
with what they would experience. And 
they wished that they had been satisfied 
with their past lot. Perhaps this would 
not have come upon them, they were 
thinking. The wind said nothing to 
them now, only howled thro’ the branches 
and hurried along. It had other things 
to think of. It was sweeping the foul air 
from cities, and the damp air from low 
places, and the snowy air from the moun- 
tains. It grew colder and colder, the 
leaves grew numb, and hung stiff with 
frost and snow. Then they felt warm 



again, but numb and lifeless. They 
dimly wondered if they were now to be 
satisfied. But the warmth was a delu- 
sion, a kind of anaesthetic to keep them 
from suffering. So they fell asleep. All 
that night it snowed, and all the next 
day, and the next night, and it was bit- 
ter cold; and the wind blew hard and did 
not cease. 

The third day the leaves began to 
awake. They knew it was warmer, but 
how painful! O, that the sun would 
shine out and warm them thoroughly 
and stop the pain. But it shone only 
through clouds and they could not feel 
all its heat. They did not know that it 
was best that they should not, and they 
were suffering so! They hung limp and 
almost lifeless on their twigs. So it 
went thro’ that day, and at night they 
fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. 



The next morning they awoke with 
a start. It was late, the sun was far 
above the horizon, and shining hot down 
upon them, and the wind danced along, 
and tossed them up in the air and said 
quite distinctly, “Now, my little friends, 
you must begin all over again.” So they 
did, and grew again from the bud stocks, 
and grew very fast, and were content. 
They forgot the storm, and the loss of 
growth. The birds sang again and the 
air was warm, and they looked about in 
happiness. But soon the old longing 
came again and the breeze must needs 
whisper, very softly, yet very plainly, 
“You shall be satisfied.” 

They saw the little girl who had 
come out upon that happy day, and she 
seemed as blithe and merry as the birds. 
And there were many other children, 
passing along the road, and playing 



about. So the days passed and the 
leaves grew, and there were no more 
storms; only the showers once in a while. 
These they enjoyed. It was sometimes 
cold at night, but they did not care for 
that. They were growing, growing, all 
the time. The weeks passed quickly and 
the leaves were getting larger and larger 
and nearing their full size. 



THE LONG EPISODE. 

UT still the nameless longing. They 
wondered if they would be satisfied 
when they had reached their growth. 
This time came, all so quickly; but no, 
they were not satisfied. It seemed that 
they had everything that heart could 
wish; food in abundance, fresh air, and 
beautiful sights and sounds, while they 
danced through the day and slept and 
swayed on the branches and twigs at 
night. Their fibre began to harden, 
their ribs were getting to be quite woody; 
they were a darker, richer green, and for 
the first time began to admire them- 
selves and to hear with a good deal of 
pleasure the exclamations of passers-by: 
“O, how beautiful the leaves are; how 
glossy, and what a rich shade of green!” 
They had heard themselves praised be- 
fore when they were tender and small, 



but they had thought little about it. 
Now they thought very much of what 
people said, and were glad to hear words 
of praise. They sometimes wondered if 
this was not what the breeze had prom- 
ised, and they were just beginning to be 
quite satisfied with themselves, when the 
breeze came and spoke so distinctly that 
they could not fail to understand, “You 
shall be satisfied.” And for the first 
time they realized that it might be a long 
while before their satisfaction came. 

The summer was passing; the leaves 
had become strong, and had completed 
their growth, and reached their height 
of maturity and of beauty. The sun was 
running higher and higher, till after 
awhile not so high again, but it was 
growing hotter all the while. The leaves 
began to feel the heat. At noonday 
they felt dry and parched, then the dew 



or a shower would come at night and 
they would be refreshed. Many days it 
would be so. Then there would be a 
period of warm, sultry weather, but 
cloudy, and they would feel well for a 
long time. In July and August it was 
the worst. They had reached their full 
growth long before, so now they were 
not growing, and it seemed to them that 
they were not living quite so intensely. 
Yet they did not complain. They were 
happy, and thought of the shelter they 
gave to the trees on which they formed 
their home, and on festal days, when 
parties would come and play and feast 
under their cool shade, they were special- 
ly glad, and when the breeze came they 
would whisper to it, “This is happiness 
enough, this is satisfaction.” But the 
breeze would answer, and it seemed as 
if there was a note of sadness in its tones, 



“You shall be satisfied, you shall be 
satisfied.” 

The summer was gone. The nights 
were cool, even cold. Then came the 
long Indian summer; and how mellow 
the sunshine, how fresh and clear the 
air, and how quietly, peacefully happy 
all nature seemed to be. They had had 
a severe storm, and after that the leaves 
began to turn to gorgeous hues. They 
were brilliant in new coats of crimson, 
yellow and bronze, and in many inde- 
scribable tints of red and gold. And 
people remarked, “How beautiful the 
leaves are!” And many would come and 
get whole branches of them and take 
them to their homes. And the leaves 
were happy. They said to one another, 
“We did not know that we could be so 
admirable. We like to look at one an- 
other, and the people who see us enjoy 



the sight. We ought to be happy if we 
are giving them a pleasure.” One day 
in November it was cold and clear and 
the wind blew strong, and the leaves felt 
strange. They felt that the life was go- 
ing out of them; so they said to one an- 
other, and some of them wondered what 
it could mean. And they said, “We are 
dying, and we have never been quite 
satisfied. We wonder what it can all 
mean. Perhaps we should have been 
satisfied while we were fresh and green 
and sheltering trees and people. But we 
were not, and how can we be satisfied 
now? It is all so strange!” And the 
cold wind answered them, “You have 
been dying for a long time. These gor- 
geous coats of yours are but the funereal 
garments of your own death, beautiful, 
but swiftly passing. Yet you shall be 
satisfied.” 



The leaves began to fall, in showers, 
or one by one, whirling, floating, sailing, 
but downward toward the earth; down, 
down, day after day they fell, till the 
twigs and branches looked bare, and the 
ground was covered with leaves. They 
were not dead, but they felt themselves 
dying — so fast! Now and then a party 
of boys would come thro’ the woods and 
wade among them with a rustle and 
miniature roar that was quite delightful. 
Then reports of guns were heard all 
about. The rabbits ran among them, 
larger animals passed over them, foxes 
and bears and lynxes. Some of the 
animals gathered leaves for their win- 
ter homes, and dragged them in and lay 
on them at night. 

There was no mistake about it, the 
leaves were dying. There they lay, weak 
and helpless, their bright green color 



long since gone, their gay hues departed, 
brown and unsightly, chilled by the 
frost, buried in snow. Thro’ the long 
days of winter they lay there, in the 
dark. It was not so cold now since the 
snow came, but mysterious sounds fright- 
ened them, sounds of pounding it seemed, 
then a great crash. It was really the 
woodsmen at work. Sometimes they 
would be uncovered for awhile and see 
the sun, but it was very cold, then an- 
other blanket of snow would come and 
they would be warm again, but damp. 
They were slowly but surely dying, and 
they had never been quite satisfied. 
What could it all mean? The breezes 
could be heard yet, but they were talk- 
ing of other things. Yet they had surely 
said, “You shall be satisfied,” and the 
leaves had believed them; but they did 
not understand. 



The winter passed. Spring came 
again. The poor leaves looked up when 
they happened to be stirred to the sur- 
face and could. They saw the beautiful 
things about them, but felt that they had 
no part in them. Then came warm rains 
and they were drenched. And they felt 
more ill than they had ever felt before. 
The wet spring and hot summer and cool 
fall and dreary winter came around 
again in turn, and it seemed to the leaves 
that they were longer dying, than they 
had been living. At last they expired; 
and they were leaves no more. There 
was nothing but damp, dark brown 
mould; that was all. 



THE LAST AND THE FIRST. 

M O one knows how long they lay 
there, when one day there came a 
party into the woods and dug up some of 
the mould, and took it away and put it 
in a flower bed where were some grow- 
ing plants. And by and by, something 
so strange happened that no one could 
ever tell just how or why. The mould 
awoke, but it was no longer mould and 
it was no longer leaves. It had been 
changed into the beautiful, pure white, 
fragrant petals of a rose. Again they 
saw the light, and felt the sunshine and 
heard the birds. And — O joy! There 
above the rose, stooping down to drink 
in its fragrance, was the little child whom 
the leaves had known. But how changed! 
— grown tall, and strong, and indescrib- 
ably beautiful. The sunshine was upon 
her, but as she looked down into the rose 




petals, another light stole out upon her 
features, a light which came from within; 
and her countenance was changed into 
an ethereal beauty such as it had never 
known before. Tears welled to her eyes; 
but they were not tears of sadness, but 
of unspeakable joy and peace. And the 
rose was given the power of vision. It 
saw the girl depart, and go up into her 
room, and close the door, and kneel by 
her snow-white bed. She had been read- 
ing about the crucifixion, and it was sad 
upon her young heart. Then she had 
read of the resurrection. Yet she had 
never felt its power till this moment. 
And as the rose saw her by its gift of 
vision, it saw that the light which had 
before come over her countenance was 
intensified and made glorious as she 
knelt thus; and there was ineffable 
sweetness. Her whole being was changed, 



and she murmured, “O, my Father, I 
love thee! and O, my Savior, how can I 
love thee enough?” And down in the 
garden the petals of the rose were stirred 
by the breeze, and they murmured, “This 
is life.” And the breeze whispered, “Are 
you not satisfied?” And the rose an- 
swered, “I am satisfied.” 



A. G. AXTELL 
























































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